Mr. John McKeon:

I will deal with the other questions and if I miss any I ask members to remind me at the end. A question was raised about positive discrimination and legislation. We have draft legislation with the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel and it is intended to include it in the social welfare Bill which will come before the Houses of the Oireachtas in June with a target of enactment sometime in July. Whether it makes it into the first draft of the Bill or comes in as a Committee Stage amendment is a matter for the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel which is finishing the technical drafting of the Bill. Some technical issues have arisen. It is certainly our intention to have it in the Bill for consideration by the Oireachtas. Unfortunately, while the European Union equality directive allows us to discriminate positively in favour of young people our national legislation does not so we must make this change.